The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 14

Syrus hadn’t bothered looking up at the ghastly, shrieking things tethered to the roofs. He put his hands over his ears and ran as fast as he could, their cries following his progress until they died away at the gates of Midtown. A regiment of sentry wights tried to seal off the Midtown gate and called mechanically after him as he ducked through them. One persistent wight chased him all the way across the Night Emporium Bridge and almost to the Dials before it was reined in by its own warding field and returned to its proper post. Human sentries picked up where they left off, chasing him through Lowtown.

In the end, Syrus lost them only by cutting through the maze of alleys that led to the Lowtown Refinery. Just before dawn, he found himself alone, staring up at the glowing smokestacks, the scent of burned bone filling his aching lungs.

Stupid witch, he thought, gulping at the foul air. Why couldn’t she see reason? He’d never get into Midtown again after that episode. And how was he to get her to understand if he couldn’t speak to her again? What did the Manticore need her for, anyway? He realized that he didn’t even know. He was just acting on orders, unsure of whether anything he hoped would come to pass as a result.

He clutched at the iron-spiked fence to hold himself up. The nevered bars stung and he pulled away. Somehow, when he did so, the bar slid off its base, leaving a gap in the fence wide enough for him to slip through. He stared. Someone had obviously been filing away at the fence in secret, trying to escape. The gap was wide enough that he might be able to slip his family through it if he could just get them out. But was the fence armed with banshee alarms like the houses in Midtown?

He looked around. No one was about. He slid his hand through the gap in the bars. No werehounds came, no alarms sounded. All he heard was the steady chugging of machinery deep within the Refinery.

He was through the fence almost before he’d decided what to do. The nevered bars stung his skin until he stood completely within the fence’s perimeter. If the witch wouldn’t help and if the Manticore couldn’t help without her, then maybe it was time to help himself.

He had heard horrendous things about the Refineries and how the Refiners kept their secrets to themselves. Werehound guards were one thing, but the illusion mines were another. It was said that if you stepped on one, a beautiful illusion sprang up all around you that held you in thrall until guards came or the mine itself blew. And in the green-glowing darkness, one edge of tile could just as well be a trip plate as another. He’d had three cousins who’d tried to break into this Refinery on a lark once. (No one ever tried to break into the Imperial Refinery near the Tower. That would have been suicide). Only one of them had come back to tell the tale, and he hadn’t made it inside before the werehounds chased him off. He was the only reason Syrus knew about the mines, but also the reason why no one had tried breaking into this Refinery again.

Still. Syrus had come through the fence. He wasn’t going to allow something to catch him while he stood here like a complete ninnyhammer, as Nainai used to say.

There was a long, paved courtyard, and then what looked like another fence. He swallowed a raw burning in his throat. Surely if someone had managed to file this fence down, they’d done so on the inner fence too?

He knelt and picked up some gravel at the edge of the tiled courtyard, enough to help him get across to the other fence, he hoped.

He skidded the stone across the tiles. Nothing. He followed the pebble’s path as best he could, wishing that he had the witch’s unused powers so he could float above the ground. He gritted his teeth against the thought that he wouldn’t be in this mess if she’d only see reason. He forced himself to concentrate on following the pebble instead.

Syrus was very nearly across, his muscles clenching, his mouth cotton-dry, when the stone he threw triggered a mine. A gout of green flame sprung up around it and the pebble popped as it shattered into dust.

Trembling, Syrus heaved another pebble and inched forward.

He was almost to the fence when he heard the howling.

It was worse than the banshee alarms because he knew exactly what it meant if he was caught. He scrabbled over the last of the tiles, forgetting entirely about testing them, hoping only that he would find the gap in the fence in time and that more werehounds would not be waiting on the other side.

He was oblivious to the pain of the nevered bars as he desperately rattled them, trying to find the loose one. He cursed under his breath. He could hear the hounds now, their claws clicking across the tiles as they picked their way toward him. The Refiners had made them specifically to guard their precious Refineries. No one knew how they’d done it, and no one dared breathe that it had to do with magic. The Cityfolk said such things were heresy.

Syrus didn’t really know what heresy was, but he did know that at least the werehounds were behind instead of in front of him. That would have been a good thing, except that there were no loose bars in this fence. They bayed as he pulled himself up the bars. He bit his lip against the numbing pain, refusing to look behind him.

But before he could pull himself higher, teeth sank into his heel. For one swift moment, he was sure the pressure had broken his ankle. He kicked at the werehound’s nose with his other foot as hard as he could. It winced, and its teeth slid out of his foot, but it still had a firm grasp on his boot heel. He dug the toe of his undamaged boot down into the other and pushed it off. Then, he pulled with all his strength, leaving the werehound with a mouthful of worn leather. He came down hard on the other side, falling to his knees in agony. He couldn’t see his foot very well, except that it was slick with blood. Whether he could stand and walk on it, he had no idea.

He looked up and saw the white werehounds fighting over the scraps of his bloody boot until nothing remained. He wouldn’t get out that way. And he’d have to move fast if he wanted to keep his freedom.

But how would he keep guards or hounds from following his blood trail? He tore a broad strip off the bottom of his cotton shirt beneath his coat. As best he could in the green-tinged gloom, he bound his foot and tried to stand on it.

A little voice inside warned him that now might be a damn good time to use the Architect’s summoning stone. But just a little farther and he might at least be able to figure out a way to free his family and any other Tinkers enslaved by the Refiners.

He hobbled toward the door and found it locked, but then he heard rattling on the other side. He slunk back against the wall. A guard emerged, wedging the door open with a bit of wood. He investigated the hounds along the fence, shouting at them when they continued to fight.

Syrus didn’t waste the opportunity. He slipped through the shadows and into the open door.

The chill was the first thing that hit him. It was face-numbingly, bone-achingly cold inside. Syrus had expected something entirely different. And the smell was strange; the chill masked it to some extent, but he could still get a whiff of something dead. Or dying.

He hurried up the stairs and along a corridor, his heel aching with the pain. Luckily, the cold floor was slowing the blood flow, but he didn’t know how long he could stump along on it before he was forced to hop on one foot. He was quite sure he couldn’t run very far. He palmed the summoning stone. Would an Architect really come to him if he summoned one here? Or had it all just been talk?

Another door led him to a catwalk, and he was now at the core of the freezing building. He edged along, watching carefully for guards or workers until he found a spot along the catwalk where he could sink down and take stock.

Beneath his feet, the giant Refinery boiler boomed and pulsed, steam belching occasionally out of its joints. The noise was so loud that his heart struggled against it, slipping back and forth between his own rhythm and that of the machine. Phosphorescent icicles coated the rusting pipes. Figures moved in the steam-shrouded gloom—Tinkers, he was quite certain, though he wasn’t close enough to tell whether any of them were from his lost clan.

A metal door wrenched open. Refiners in their black coats and goggles pulled something through the door. Something that shone with its own light, much like the Harpy had.

He remembered how they had been waiting on the Harpy when her carriage arrived at the outer walls. He remembered what Granny Reed had said about what happened to the Elementals when they passed through that door.

He hadn’t really wanted to believe her. After all, who had been inside a Refinery and escaped to tell the true tale of what went on there? It had all been rumors and hearsay and the ever-present worry about whose clan might be next.

Until now.

The thing below waved wild tentacles of light. Syrus couldn’t tell what it was, except that it rolled and gasped and stared up at him with its great watery eye as if it saw him crouching there.

Some kind of water spirit, Syrus thought.

He had only a second to wonder what the Refiners were doing with it before the purpose became all too clear. He heard a metallic clang as the door to the boiler was thrown open.

Whatever the thing was—Kraken or Undine—began to wail. Its wailing was the purest, saddest music Syrus had ever heard. It sang of rivers melting toward the sea, of the great uncharted oceans and all their kingdoms. It sang of water as the blood of the world, the deep, pulsing tide without which life would cease. And it pleaded, as the Harpy had, for its own desperate release.

Syrus clenched his fists around the bars of the catwalk, waiting for someone to do something. The Refiners tugged and shouted, using thunderbusses that stunned but didn’t kill it. They certainly couldn’t silence the beauty or volume of its song.

Syrus was sure at least some of the Tinkers working around the perimeter would come to the beast’s aid, and he was momentarily gratified when some of them moved closer until he realized that they were doing so to help the Refiners.

Together, the Tinkers and Refiners shoved and pulled the creature toward the open door. It struggled, using some of its tentacles to hold itself at the threshold.

But the Refiners kept jabbing at it with their sticks, stuffing its billowy body into the sickly-green mouth of the boiler.

Sudden understanding was as painful and sharp as the werehound’s bite. Nainai had been absolutely, utterly right. There were no mythmines to the north. This was why the Elementals were disappearing and the Culls had resumed. The Manticore was in terrible danger; her request for help was perhaps more pressing even than his own need to free his people.

As the last tentacle slipped into the boiler, Syrus couldn’t bear it any longer.

“STOP!” he screamed.

A gasp of light and a surge of cold sound almost knocked his heart completely out of rhythm. Jets of steam spurted from the merrily rocking engine. Everything went still, except for bits of frozen ash that glimmered green in the gloom. The Elemental’s song ceased.

All eyes turned to him. Syrus gasped, not just because of his own foolishness, but because the eyes of the Tinkers were as white and cloudy as flint. And yet they moved like those who could see, because they were running toward the catwalk stairs to catch him.

Syrus started running, but was soon reduced to hobbling by the pain in his foot. He pulled at the door he’d come through, but it was locked from the other side. And there was no going below. He glimpsed a tiny door high on the dome. If he could get there maybe he could crawl out and eventually find a way down. He swallowed and limped for it as fast as he could.

The Tinkers gained on him as he plunged up the metal stairs, but he noticed that their gait was odd. His people had a native grace, developed first from learning the forest and then often enough from learning the stealth required to survive in New London. But those who chased him stumbled along awkwardly, as if they’d forgotten how to move. Their white eyes gleamed.

Tongues of energy licked up along the metal walkways from below. The Refiners tried their best to take him down too, with their thunderbusses, though he saw that none of them were willing to climb the many flights of stairs. As he lifted himself up yet another flight toward the beckoning little door, he heard the telltale howling. They were sending werehounds after him, too.

A hand clutched at him and then another. He turned and kicked one person in the shins with his good foot, and they went down together in a tangle of limbs because his bitten foot couldn’t support his weight anymore. He crawled free, punching and scratching, trying to save his little dagger as a last resort. When he’d crawled up to another landing, he loaded his dart pipe with trembling hands and blew two darts into the closest white-eyed Tinkers. At least they’d only be asleep for a little while, rather than permanently hurt.

The darts bought him some time, but not enough. The first of the werehounds was soon upon him, grabbing him by the back of the coat and shaking him away from the door. He twisted, drawing the little knife. He stabbed as he could, the werehound dancing and leaping and trying to drag him down the stairs. The last blow slid between the ribs, puncturing a lung.

The werehound loosened its grip, slumping against the rail, wheezing and whistling. It gazed up at him with a look so human that Syrus felt queasy. He watched as it shimmered and slowly shifted into the form of his cousin Raine, the one who had proudly declared she would use his earnings as her dowry. Now, she clutched her side, desperately trying to draw air into her collapsed lung.

He stared. The Refiners had taken his people and turned them into dogs. And he had killed his cousin.

He reached for her, but she gestured him away. “Go,” she breathed. He could barely hear her over the howls of her kin, the throbbing of the boilers far below. She nodded toward the door.

He went, closing it just as more jaws sought the hem of his coat. He looked desperately for something to wedge the door shut, and found a bit of rusting railing to wedge through the door handle. But with enough time and strength, they’d surely break through.

A small widow’s walk circled the smokestack that belched glowing smog above him. Syrus’s eyes and nose streamed; the burning bone smell seared like acid now. He couldn’t stay up here much longer, but as he looked over the edge, he had absolutely no idea how he would get down.

He crouched against the smokestack, out of sight of the door. The white-eyed Tinkers banged against it; the werehounds howled for his blood.

Syrus put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry. His foot throbbed with pain; his lungs hurt from trying to breathe the acrid air. But more than that, his heart hurt that his world was even crueler than Granny Reed had once said. Everyone with any sense knew that this world belonged to the Elementals and their kind. Humans were just visitors in this land. But now, all indications were that the New Londoners were much worse than he’d ever dreamed. They were not only destroying Elementals to power their infernal machines, but turning his people into monsters. How much further would they go? All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t stop them by himself. And yet, something had to be done.

Thunk, ka-thunk, thunk.

His people would soon have that door open, and then what?

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stop the seeping tears. He went to the railing and looked down over the edge of the dome. The ground was lost in pre-dawn mist.

He could just make out the rusting rungs of what looked like a ladder built into the side of the dome, but he would have to free-climb for several hundred yards before he made it. He could probably do it on any average day. But with a bum foot and werehounds possibly waiting for him below . . .

He withdrew the stone from his pocket. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

“Et in Arcadia ego,” he whispered.

Light shivered next to him and spat out a handsome man in a dressing gown, who stared at him disapprovingly and said, “Athena’s Girdle, boy! Could you pick a less decent hour to summon a chap?”

Syrus stared. This was the same Architect who had been with the witch outside Rackham’s, the one the witch had called Hal.

The Architect looked around. “I doubt there’s any less decent place, either. How did you . . . ?”

He saw Syrus’s injury and heard the banging at the door simultaneously. He made a sound of disgust.

“Never mind. Come here and take hold of my sleeve,” he said.

Syrus hesitated. It occurred to him that he could be jumping from the kettle into the fire, as Nainai would say.

“Oh, dash it all, boy!” the Architect said. “I am not leading you to certain doom! Take hold of my sleeve or stay here and suffer your fate. I’m under house arrest. If my valet finds I’m gone, there’ll be more than a pack of angry Refiners waiting, I promise you.”

Syrus took hold of the Architect’s sleeve just as the Tinkers burst through the door. Their white eyes dissolved into the green haze of the New London dawn.